


Even Plants Can Drown

by kattastic99



Series: In Death Are You Redeemed [2]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Adam Taurus Redemption Arc, Gen, because the serial killer is a deeply traumatized twenty year old, but pietro works for the atlesian military, god where do i even start with this, he is familiar with atrocities, he's inflicted hell on many and he has done horrible things, someone gets murdered because listen thats what adam does alright, the slow and agonizing process of pietro adopting a serial killer, then its just, who has gone through more hell than any fucking body should go through
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:47:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27283651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kattastic99/pseuds/kattastic99
Summary: Adam Taurus needs a new name, and a new life, because he needs help that Adam Taurus would never be given.
Series: In Death Are You Redeemed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993420
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Even Plants Can Drown

Making it to Solitas wasn’t as difficult as Atlas probably wanted, all things considered. Oh, sure, all imports and exports were halted due to the embargo and nobody was allowed to come or go, but like everything in Atlas there were double standards and exceptions galore. Argus was chief among them, but Adam wasn’t going to use a legitimate channel in the first place so that didn’t matter. 

No, the fun thing about government embargos was that they only served to damage the legitimate. Those who were already breaking the law would simply continue to do so, and attempts to tighten control only ever inevitably fueled the illicit. Mantle had already had a smuggling issue, and now that the borders were locked down smuggling was literally the only option people had. He would have been disgusted by the blatant ignorance and incompetence of the Atlas military in the past. 

He was still disgusted, but not quite as much because of the futility of an embargo; Atlas had so, so very many reasons to hate it and the entire point of returning to this godsforsaken continent was to clean up as many of them as he could. Surviving your own death by sheer fucking luck and ignorance had a way of changing your perspective. 

Failing to die in the forest despite waiting for it would also do that, but as far as Adam was concerned it was being stabbed by the woman he’d stalked and the woman he’d amputated that really sealed the deal on the whole ‘wake up and smell the dead roses’ thing. And, sure, it took him a while! He’d had his entire worldview shattered into pieces and been forced to pick them up and decide if he even wanted to keep breathing. He’d had to actually think about what he wanted to do, about himself, about everything and anything instead of just pursuing the path of his own anger. Surely a couple weeks of wandering in the wilds could be forgiven in light of that. 

_ Gods, I’m really bad at this whole introspection thing aren’t I,  _ Adam thought to himself.  _ The joys of stakeouts, I suppose. Or the price. Like most things, it doesn’t matter.  _ He lifted his hand from the edge of the roof he was crouching on to scratch at his nose under his mahogany bull mask.  _ This ID better be worth the trouble, I’m not exactly in the right shape to be crouching in a ball on a roof for six hours in the dead of night on fucking Mantle.  _ He wasn’t new to stealing valuable things from high security targets, and this was hardly high security, but his chest really couldn’t handle too much more of this. 

The window he was watching finally lit up, and Adam knew he only had to wait a few moments more. It was maybe three minutes later that the window was thrown open, and Adam made his move. 

The alleyway between the two buildings was pretty narrow, and the building he’d been crouching on was only two stories higher than his target. Even permanently half-winded, it was about as difficult as playing hopscotch. He landed in the room and sprang to his feet, drawing his sword before the woman inside could so much as reach for her gun. 

“Really hope that wasn’t a random runner,” he muttered as her body fell to the floor with a lovely new gap between her shoulder and her rib cage, courtesy of his sword. The woman who ran this place was a rather notorious drug peddler, although calling her a peddler implied something smaller than the fifth largest narcotics smuggling ring in Mantle. A quick rummage through her pockets provided the key to the safe he needed so, probably her. He’d find out eventually, he supposed. 

The safe itself wasn’t even hidden, just sitting in the corner of the room almost as if asking people to rob it. Never one to turn down a polite request, Adam unlocked it and happily grabbed the pile of documents he’d been hired to find and stuffed them into his jacket’s inner pocket. Neatly side-stepping the growing pool of blood, Adam climbed out the open window and pushed off from the ledge, grabbing the window ledge across the narrow alley and then pushing off from it to scale the buildings with ease. 

As he jumped across the roofs of Mantle, Adam found himself slipping back into his thoughts. He’d always loved the night sky, although he’d forgotten that love for many years. He’d forgotten a lot of things, and he’d convinced himself of many more. Convinced himself that everybody seethed with the same black hatred that he did, that everyone deeply hated everybody they knew, that everyone just wanted to hurt people to soothe the agony inside them. Convinced himself that every act or word otherwise was a pleasant lie, and that in order to be part of society you just had to pretend and lie. So that’s what he’d done. He couldn’t understand, in the end, why they were acting that way. Why she……

Adam shook his head and gained his bearings, perching atop a heating vent for a moment as he plotted the rest of his route. He was almost there, just had to drop these papers off and pick up his brand new ID. All it took was a quick hop down to an awning and a quick balanced scurry across a hanging laundry line ten stories off the ground, and he was in the shabby apartment a certain forger called their office. 

“You got ‘em?” asked the equally shabby Mantle forger. The guy looked like you’d expect anybody to look after six years of only eating half the amount of food you needed and getting half the sleep on top of it; like dried up shit in a stained bath robe. 

Adam just reached inside his coat and pulled out the papers. “A nice four years worth of blackmail, special delivered. Oh, uh,” he said with a brief pause, “she might be dead by the way.”

The man grabbed the papers out of his hand like they were the only thing that could save him, which they probably were. “Well good for her horrible family, they have one less stain to deal with. You’re not getting anything extra,” he said with narrowed eyes. 

“Where’s my ID, Franklin.” Adam said. He was already very tired of being near this man, and he was almost looking forward to the inevitable day that he was hired to kill this one too. There was never any shortage of work in Mantle for someone who could escape the cops and put people in the ground. Which was convenient, because Adam had a lot of expenses. 

Franklin tossed the packet of life saving and priceless blackmail onto his messy desk with little fanfare, and yanked open a drawer. He pulled out an ID card, and if Adam was more easily fooled he might have come to the conclusion that Franklin had just had it lying around. But Adam wasn’t easily fooled, and he knew damn well that Franklin had spent the majority of the past week working on that ID; it wasn’t just a card with a name and a picture on it, it was a Mantle issued civilian ID with its own SSN and data entries. “Here you go,” he said as he handed it over. “Seth Umber, Mantle born and raised but recently back from a failed emmigration, complete with fairly average public school records and even a fancy couple of misdemeanors.”

Adam pulled his metal wallet out of his pocket and slid the ID in with a hum of satisfaction. “I would say it’s been a pleasure, Franklin,” he said as he slipped his wallet back into his pants, “but it really hasn’t been.”

Franklin just scoffed. “Yeah this was real fun. Why did you want the misdemeanors, anyways? Go to this much trouble, just for a stained slate?”

Adam stared blankly at him, just long enough for Franklin to start shifting. “Because nobody who has a fake identity made for them is going to have a criminal record added to it. Clean slates are a rare thing in Mantle, and standing out is the last thing I’m here to do.”

“Says the guy who jumps out of windows and scurries across power lines like a ballerina,” Franklin said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m very busy.” Then he sat down on his stained computer chair and stared Adam in the face, waiting for him to leave. 

Adam took the hint and left out the window, which he heard slam shut behind him almost immediately. He only had one more stop tonight, but it was a pretty important one. He took the roofs and wires most of the way, but hopped down to the ground in an alley for the final few blocks. 

It was a nice night, really. Not many clouds, stars were as bright as they could be with this much light pollution, wind wasn’t too bad. He stopped just outside the door, well lit and warm, to look up at the stars. He wished he could see them like he used to. 

Part of him had expected a bell to ring when he walked in, even though that didn’t make any sense for a pharmacy. “Hello? I, uh. I was told you could help me,” he called out. He couldn’t see anybody, just a desk towering with stacks of papers and what looked like an examination table further back. 

The pile of papers let out a warm sounding hurrumph, followed by “I just might,” which quickly revealed itself to be attached to an old man in a robotic ambulatory chair. It barely made a sound as it trotted out from behind the desk and carried the old man over to him. “Tell me what the problem is, young man, and I’ll do my best!” He seemed completely genuine, which in the past Adam would immediately assume to be a front. Now, though, Adam was pretty sure the guy was actually this nice. Faunus don’t lie when they tell each other about a doctor that actually,  _ actually _ helped them. Especially not down here in Mantle, where half the clinics would make veterinary jokes and the other half would actually kick you out and tell you to go to a veterinary clinic. 

“I was, attacked, several months ago and barely survived,” he said tersely, “and while I was able to use my semblance to overcharge my aura enough for the wounds to heal, I’m fairly certain that there were complications. Aura isn’t meant to heal like that, so I wanted to have a doctor check it.”

The jovial nature of the man before him didn’t vanish, necessarily, but it definitely slid backwards to make room for a seasoned professional. “You’re right, aura really isn’t meant to handle life threatening injuries. I’m glad it saved your life, but there’s simply no guarantee that you won’t need surgery anyways. I can do it here, but we’ll have to go upstairs,” and just like that the man was using a joystick on his arm rest to send his chair skittering into the back of the little pharmacy, towards the stairs, and Adam had no choice but to follow. “My name is Pietro Polendina, but you can call me whatever you like.”

Adam swallowed. He didn’t know why he felt so, so. He didn’t even have words for the emotions he was feeling, but they were concerning to say the least. He felt almost vulnerable. “Thank you, Dr. Pietro. My name is Seth Umber.” The stairs proved to be a non-issue for Pietro’s chair, climbing them even more nimbly than Adam did and significantly faster. Pietro opened a door at the landing, and Adam followed him into what was quite possibly the most advanced looking medical facility Adam had ever seen in his life. It looked like it belonged in Atlas, not down here in Mantle. Then again, the same could certainly be said for Pietro himself. 

“Please,” Pietro said as he gestured at another examination table, “take a seat and make yourself comfortable.” Unlike the bed downstairs, this one had a lot more machines around it and pretty much all of them looked to be some sort of scanner or sensor or something else meant to get a look at what might be wrong in a body. Pietro simply scuttled over to a terminal and waited for Adam to sit down. 

The bed was softer than he thought it would be. “Should I…. My weapons, will they interfere with, scans?” Adam had no fucking idea what any of these things did, but he knew that some medical scanners were magnetic and didn’t want his sword or switchblade to go flying around the room at half the speed of sound. 

Pietro looked up, gazing over at him as if only just now noticing that Adam was even armed. “Ah, yes I’m afraid you’ll have to let me hold onto them for now,” he said as he trotted smoothly over to him. Adam was hesitant, but he came here to get help and this was what he had to do. He grabbed his sword by the sheathe with his left hand and pulled it free from the clip that held it to the back of his coat, and laid it gingerly in Pietro’s outstretched hands. To his surprise, Pietro immediately unsheathed it and took a closer look. “Marvelous design, here, and, oh!” He looked up with a wide smile. “The use of gravity dust circuits here in the crossguard and the sheathe, that’s simply ingenious! If you don’t mind me asking, what’s its name?”

He hadn’t expected a doctor, even one with such advanced facilities and a reputation among Mantle’s struggling faunus as a miracle, to know so much about weapons. “Euphrates,” he said quietly. Adam reached into his coat and pulled out his switchblade, which he placed on top of his sword. “And this is Delta.” 

If Pietro had been excited about the gravity-sheathe, then he was over the broken moon about Adam’s dust-powered switchblade. “Is this…..” he said as he held it close to his eyes, and then he gasped. “It is!” Pietro was grinning like a kid in a candy store. “Mixing dust powder together is a risky business, but with such a small weapon there’s no other option. Never, in my life, have I seen a switchblade like this! Do you know how they solved the elemental bleed problem?”

He did, of course, especially because he’d had to help the blacksmith he’d hired figure it out in the first place. The switchblade needed to be able to channel different elements, but it didn’t have room for separate dust crystals so they’d been forced to mix all the elemental powders together. The problem with that is they would literally mix together and stop being separate elements. It had taken weeks to get the balance right, but. “The dust is kept suspended in oil solutions, each element in a different oil. The oils don’t mix, so the dust doesn’t either.”

He got the distinct impression that Pietro wanted to hug him. “That is simply inspired,” he said breathlessly. That joy quickly slid away, though, as he went back to being a professional. Pietro went back to the terminal, setting the weapons down on the counter next to him with reverence that Adam appreciated. “Could you hold as still as you can for me?” he asked, and Adam nodded. Pietro began tapping away at holographic keys, and Adam heard several of the machines around him hum to life. 

All in all it only took about five minutes, but Adam had watched Pietro’s face the entire time and wasn’t exactly encouraged by the way his face steadily darkened with worry as each minute passed. When the machines went quiet, Pietro pulled a tablet out of a drawer and tapped at it for a moment before walking over to him. He turned the tablet around, and showed Adam that it was showing the results of the various scans. His figure, silhouetted in blue, with red marking the areas of issue. 

There was a lot of red.

“So,” Pietro said, and the gravity of the situation was not lost on him but even so the tone of the doctor’s voice was upsetting, “the four scars you must have been worried about are weaker than they should be. It looks as though they’d been infected several times, and the strain that put on your immune system could only have been severe.” Pietro pointed to his right shoulder, awash in red that Adam didn’t understand. “Whatever happened to you after you were stabbed, you took a serious hit to your right shoulder and it’s caused a build-up of scar tissue. It looks like the socket was bruised, and your ligaments look strained as well.” His fingers brushed down the display to tap at his lungs. “This is the area of the most concern by far, however. Your lungs must have been collapsed by the stab wounds, and while your aura was able to repair them they’re only at roughly half capacity. From the looks of it there’s scar tissue in your lungs as well, and while there’s not much we can do about that it’s a simple enough matter to re-inflate your lungs. You’ll be sore for a week or so, and you might want to avoid anything strenuous, but you should notice a significant improvement in your breathing.”

Pietro tapped at his ribs this time. “Unfortunately that’s not the only problem in your chest. Four of your ribs healed poorly and I’m afraid I’ll likely have to replace them. Your shoulder is a very easy fix, nothing to worry about there,” he said as he highlighted the offending joint, “but your left kidney is practically dead. Even another week, and it’ll shut down completely. Now, I do have a cybernetic replacement,” Pietro said, “but since you can live with only one kidney that I’ll leave to your discretion.”

Pietro stepped back a bit, and turned the tablet back to look at it himself. “There are two other issues I want to address here,” and Adam already knew full well what they were going to be. When Pietro looked back up at him, his face held no trace of resentment or disgust, even though Adam had seen the outline of his horns on that display. “The first is mostly cosmetic, but even though your broken horn doesn’t pose any health risks there are psychological elements that I can’t brush aside. I treat a lot of faunus, Mr. Umber, and I’ve seen more cases of faunus traits being forcibly damaged or even outright amputated than I would ever like to. Even when they aren’t health risks, having a part of yourself, a physical manifestation of your identity, destroyed…. It has a serious impact on mental health. I can have a prosthetic cap for your horn made by tomorrow, I just need to know which material you’d prefer.”

Adam’s breathing was even through force of will alone. Pietro, seemingly well aware of this fact, continued without wasting time. “Of course, the last issue is your eye. Cybernetics are an option, of course, but optical cybernetics are bulky and noticeable and they’re usually only installed when both eyes have been irreparably damaged. It’s up to you, but regardless of your decision I’m afraid that I’ll have to remove it. Frankly it’s a miracle it hasn’t gone necrotic, and it’s putting a serious strain on your immune system. I can put in a glass eye, don’t worry it’s not made of glass, which you’ll be able to move just like your real one, although it will take a few weeks for the muscles to connect.”

Pietro stopped, finally, and looked up at Adam with an expression he found hard to place. Maybe concern? Adam wasn’t really sure, but he knew it made the emotions he was struggling with worse. It took him a few moments to realize that Pietro was waiting for his input. “Um. I’m sorry, this is a bit overwhelming,” he said softly, and Pietro nodded with an acknowledging hum. “I, uh. I don’t need the kidney, I mean you should probably remove it but I don’t. Need it replaced.” He swallowed, looking pretty much anywhere except the doctor’s face. “I don’t want a cybernetic eye,” he said with a shallow form of the conviction he truly felt about that, “but I would like the, not glass eye. As for the horn, I.” He frowned. “I don’t know. If it was both of them, maybe, or even if the break was close to the base, but it’s only in half. I. I don’t want to pretend that it didn’t happen.” Pietro simply nodded. 

“We can have a cap made in a different color so it doesn’t match. You don’t have to have a cap, obviously, but I just want you to know that you can have a cap without losing the significance of the injury.” Pietro was speaking so softly, but Adam wasn’t having the slightest trouble hearing him. It wasn’t quiet, it was just…. Soft. 

Adam took a deep breath, more aware of the tightness in his chest than he ever had been before. “Can I get one made of steel?” he asked quietly. 

“Of course,” Pietro said as he added that to the notes Adam only just realized he’d been making. “We’ll go for a lightweight stainless steel plated ceramic, if that’s okay with you?” Adam nodded. “Alright, there we go,” Pietro said as he finished his notes. “Now, what design would you like on your eye?”

Adam blinked. He hadn’t considered that as a possibility, actually. “Uh. I think I’d just like it to match my real one.” Then he realized what that meant, what all of this meant. The surgeries, the replacements, he. Pietro was going to see everything. 

Adam swallowed, and as Pietro made some more notes on the tablet he reached up and slid his mask off his head. Calling it a mask was a bit of a misnomer, but it was still the most accurate term for it. The bull horns were hollow, and slid over his real ones so he had to slide it on over them. On top of that, the mask covered about a quarter of his scalp. Even thought it was just treated wood, it felt heavier than his sword ever had as he held it in his lap. 

Pietro looked up, and for just a second Adam could see the confusion on his face. Then that second passed, and Pietro finally processed what the injury on Adam’s face really was. 

He had expected the pity. What Adam hadn’t expected was the glint of anger in the doctor’s eyes. “So. What now?” Adam asked. 

Pietro blinked, and then refocused back into the professional he really was. “Well, I’ll need you to sign some things-”

Adam interrupted him. “Wait. I can pay, I’m so sorry I completely forgot-”

And Pietro interrupted him in turn. “No. You’re not giving me your money, not for this.” Adam was entirely sure he’d hallucinated for a moment, but Pietro’s face was hardened and sure and he realized that this was actually happening. “Atlas has enough might to spare a paltry box of supplies for someone who needs it, and there is nothing I would rather spend my time and skills on than helping the people this nation has ground beneath its heel.” There was a steely quality to Pietro’s voice, as he spoke, that Adam found to be both familiar and surprising. 

Adam just nodded. “Okay. So, I sign some things, and then what? Can we do it right now?” Pietro nodded and handed him the tablet, now with digital forms ready for his signature, as well as a stylus. For a split second, his hand went to make the motions to sign Adam Taurus, but he caught it just in time and somewhat shakily signed Seth Umber. 

“Well, then you come over here,” Pietro said softly as he smoothly scuttled across the room to an operating table that was rising out of the floor, “after you change,” and Adam paused where he’d started standing up and followed Pietro’s pointing hand with his eyes to find a little room tucked away where he’d never seen it; a changing room, presumably with a hospital gown for him to put on. “And then you lie down.”

Adam went into the changing room and took off his clothes, piling them up on the counter with his mask on top. He pulled on the threadbare gown and tried not to shake. He came back out to find Pietro setting up what must have been the anesthetic. No matter how hard he’d tried, his hands were still shaking when he laid down on that padded little table. 

Pietro gave him one of the softest smiles he’d ever seen, and placed the gas mask over his mouth. “Just count down from ten, alright?”

There was a hiss as the gas was turned on, and Adam started counting. He barely made it to eight. 

**Author's Note:**

> So! Um! I didn't want this to happen! But this fucker has taken up room in my brain rent free and instead of ever being able to do any of the many many things I want to do, my brain is doing this now. 
> 
> Anyways, lotta themes happening in here that I barely even acknowledge because it got away from me like you wouldn't believe. First off; pre-redemption (aka canon) Adam has a couple of themes going on, one of them being based on flowers. His original weapons were named Wilt and Blush, and combined with his red and black color schemes and thorn motifs Adam had, just. Look let's not fuck around here, he's the rose from Beauty and the Beast like that's the thing that's his Shtick. Redemption Adam, on the other hand, has gone to greys and browns and has a new pair of weapons named after rivers. He's gone backwards, from plant themes to the things plants grow in. He's the water and the dirt and the mud and the ground. 
> 
> Pietro is a good man. He is a good man who works for a violent and corrupt military. He made a daughter, and he has now found a son. I will tell you right now; he finds out who Adam is very quickly and this does not change a thing.


End file.
